Wait….did this website cause me to have a sexist thought? It most certainly did. For the tiniest of nanoseconds, my thought was ‘So, is it easier because it’s aimed at women?‘

That’s not a good thought to have. It’s also not a great thought to share on a blog either!

Hmm, maybe my I.Q. isn’t as high as I thought.

I would like to say at this point that I’m not sexist. If anything, the website was sexist by pandering to its readers, right?

Right?

>crickets<

Maybe this clickbait quiz was designed to have men go through what i’m going through and question their views on the better sex?

(Yes, I’m grovelling for forgiveness here).

But in all seriousness, I ‘m not a sexist guy; women are awesome.1 In fact, now I think about it, all my girlfriends have been female.

Every single one.

My wife’s a woman too. I checked.

I’ve never considered women to be inferior to men (except for their inability to see the difference between DVD and BluRay picture quality which is SO annoying! Come on….look at the crispness of the image and how clear each pixel is when you….no, no I’m not going to get into this now), so was the website subtly imposing sexism on me?

Was I sexist by proxy? Was it designed to make us men think about sexism? Was the quiz actually difficult and I am, in fact, a monumental genius?

My wife and I work the same shift at the same company, and that shift starts at 5am. As a result, we’re usually very sleepy during the drive into work. I have to say, it makes the other drivers nervous when they look over and see us both snoring, heads back, drooling.

This morning my wife felt the desire for Starbucks coffee and she asked[1] if we could stop at a drive through [or ‘drive-thru’ for all my American chums out there].

Of course.

We pulled up behind a car already in the queue [line] ordering their coffee. Soon enough, after a brief 3 hours, the car finally moved and we rolled up the microphone.

The speaker crackled into life.

“Welcome to Starbucks”

“Hi”, we both replied in sleepy unison.

“Yeah, we’re actually not open right now.”, came the lacklustre response in that inimitable style that made it sound like a question.

“Oh….OK. Never mind, thank you”

We looked at each other, shrugged and started to drive off. Unfortunately we couldn’t go far as the car in front of us was at the next window waiting for their coffee.

We couldn’t get around them and, despite my wife’s insistence I beep my horn and ‘urge’ them to move the fuck out of the way, I decided to reverse back along the drive through lane as there were no cars behind us…..at 4:30am on a Monday.

I wonder why.

Anyway, as we reversed back past the microphone/speaker we could hear the woman babbling something over the intercom, so we stopped.

“Welcome to Starbucks, can I take your order?”

We looked at each other again, but this time in total confusion. My wife leaned across me and said, “Wait….I thought you said you were closed.”

The speaker crackled back into life, “No, I said we we’re not open right now.”

Wait, isn’t that the same thing?

The speaker continued to crackle with attitude as the woman told us why they weren’t open yet; something about waiting for something or whatever….I don’t know. Anyway, her tedious tale concluded with her asking if she could take our order.

Maybe it was the fact we were half asleep and devoid of caffeine, but she made no sense whatsoever.

So if you’re reading this and you’re not from the USA, take note…..’Not Open‘ and ‘Closed‘ mean different things over here….apparently.

It’s Sunday and I’m at work. It’s actually my scheduled day to work, so this isn’t a ranty post about having to work weekends and the world can lick my sweaty bumhole.

Sorry.

Instead, this is a post about the baffling and idiotic mindset of one of my friends and colleagues who is also here today.

So, for context, we have a large bistro on campus here at work which offers all sorts of foods, drinks and dubious stains and spills on the floor. Usually, when I take my lunch, I head down to the bistro and then text my colleague (let’s call her Numpty) and let her know what free soups they have on offer that day. She then replies and lets me know which she’d like and I take one back to her.

I’m simply awesome like that.

Well, being a Sunday, there was only one choice of soup instead of the usual three. Today’s soup was beef chilli. Yes, I know it’s not technically a soup, but it resembles a soup more than a barrel of squashed frogs.

Actually, squashed frog soup sounds pretty good.

Anyway, when I got down there I sent her a text. In fact, here is the ACTUAL conversation we had (my comments are in yellow).

There’s a lot of love between us

I deserved it.

But then again, so did she. I mean, all she had to do was type ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. In fact a simple ‘Y’ or ‘N’ would have sufficed.

Just coasting on the back of my last post; the woman on the exercise bike next to me is having a full blown, animated conversation on her phone. She’s panting heavily which I suppose is… sexy?

Unlike me, she’s pedalling very fast and sweating lots.

Also unlike me – who is able to compose this post whilst pedalling – she’s lacking the appropriate concentration necessary to multitask and has missed the pedals twice, nearly giving herself some complimentary handlebar dentistry.

I got to work a bit early this morning, so took the opportunity to make myself some coffee and toast.

Whilst I was waiting by the toaster another employee came over to put some Tupperware’d nastiness in the microwave. We smiled and performed the customary “Good Morning”, the optional “How’s your day going?” and (as I found out very quickly) the unnecessary “I’m utterly fucked”.

I must say, her face indicated that maybe, just maybe, I may have gone a tad too far; but she asked….so….

Anyway, she went back to zapping her box of whatever and I went back to waiting for my toast to ‘Shadunk‘ out of the toaster, when another employee walked by and shouted out to my new ‘friend’.

Last week I was walking behind an American woman who was holding hands with her young daughter and talking to two young French girls. She was asking them about France and how to say certain words in French.

As I got closer I heard:

“So, how do ya’ll say ‘Camden‘ in French?”

There was a pause as the two girls looked at each other bemused, and then turned slowly back to the woman.

One of them replied:

“Er, Camden eez ze name of a market in London, no?”

Woman “Uh huh” said the woman, not getting it; “So how do y’all say it in French?”

There was another pause as the French girl tried to decipher if there was something she missed, or a meaning she hadn’t considered…or if it was simply a stupid fucking question.

Finally she looked back at the woman and gave the only answer she possibly could.